Hyte Y50 RGB Review: A Panoramic View, a Pocket-Friendly Price

Thomas Soderstrom — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 16:00:00 +0000

The $99.99 Hyte Y50 RGB is exactly the result you’d expect to see if a smart PC case designer looked at Hyte’s older Y60 and was tasked with maximizing what was possible for half the money. The quirky, distinct …

Asus ProArt GeForce RTX 5090 32GB GDDR7 OC Edition Review: The Ultimate Creator Card

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 21:02:06 +0000

Be prepared for a clash between titans—except here, the titans are kin. Take the Asus ProArt GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card, which retails for $3,999. Based on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, this card is faster than almost anything else on the consumer market. The …

The Best Gaming PCs for 2026

Matthew Buzzi — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 23:15:32 +0000

You can't buy a more powerful gaming platform than a tricked-out desktop. Here's everything you need to know, part by part, to pick the right prebuilt gaming PC, plus current favorites culled from PC Labs' top-rated reviews.

What Are the Best Gaming PC Specs for 2026?

Gaming PCs live and die by their graphics cards (or graphics chips, in the case of gaming laptops), the most critical PC component for determining your gaming performance ceiling. Most gaming systems will come preinstalled with a …

NZXT H6 RGB Plus Review: Lots of Fans and Curve Appeal

Thomas Soderstrom — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 18:00:00 +0000

NZXT’s popular H6 midsize tower case is back with curved glass for 2026 and a new moniker—“RGB+” —replacing the “Flow RGB” of its 2024 model. Let’s get the product’s biggest confusion out of the way: “RGB+” versus “RGB Plus.” That …

Lian Li Vector V150 INF Review: Mirrors and Magic in MicroATX Form

Thomas Soderstrom — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000

While many PC case makers are cutting corners nowadays to save a buck, dropping basic features and handy creature comforts, many will feel the back of the glove from Lian Li with this chassis. The veteran chassis player has decided it’s not going to play …

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition Review: The Ultimate 3D V-Cache Chip for Creators, Not Gamers

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 14:00:00 +0000

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition is AMD’s most powerful 3D V-Cache processor to date, equipped with more 3D V-Cache chips than any desktop CPU before it for an additional 128MB of performance-boosting cache. The 9950X3D2 also likely takes this technology to its current limits …

Lian Li x DAN Cases B4-mATX Review: This MicroATX Chassis Is a Real Shape-Shifter

Thomas Soderstrom — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Small-form-factor enthusiasts know that when this combination happens—Lian Li does the manufacturing, and DAN Cases does the designing—magic usually follows. The third collaboration between the Taiwanese PC case kingpin and the German hardware designer, the $69.99 Lian Li x DAN Cases B4-mATX is no exception. …

Cooler Master Q300L V3 Review: Unbeatable Value for MicroATX Builds

Thomas Soderstrom — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Getting high-speed USB ports in a PC case usually means at least a $100 spend. Want lots of install flexibility, including where you put your ports and how you orient the chassis? Probably also three figures. Cooler Master says: Can we interest you in a …

AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs. Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus: AMD Wins Games, Intel Wins Everything Else

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 17:56:58 +0000

One CPU tops the gaming charts. The other crushes it in productivity, integrated graphics, and overall value. Here's why Intel's Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is the smarter buy for most PCs—and when the popular Ryzen 7 9850X3D makes sense.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D: The Frame-Rate Chaser's Dream

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is the most recent Ryzen 7 processor to feature AMD's much-lauded 3D V-Cache, housed in a "chiplet" (in essence, a module on the processor). The 3D V-Cache claim to fame is that …

These 4 DIY Builds Blow Away Valve's Steam Machine, and One Saves You $150

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:54:02 +0000

Valve's long-awaited Steam Machine is finally here, but it's not as affordable as anyone had hoped. I've pieced together parts to help you build four alternative PCs that are cheaper, punchier, or both.

Valve's exciting new Steam Machine gaming desktop has landed, but it's not the affordable dream machine many PC gamers expected. That's due in no small part to the skyrocketing prices for memory and

SilverStone FLP03 Review: Build a Beige Box That Actually Rocks

Thomas Soderstrom — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 20:00:00 +0000

Faking a retro PC case is easy enough: Slap a beige faceplate on a modern chassis and add a faux floppy drive, and it looks the part, at least from arm’s length. But in 2026, that PC case also needs the cooling, cable management, and …

AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D Review: Zen 4 Strikes Back at Intel With a Glancing Blow

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 13:39:38 +0000

AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X3D is its newest gaming-centric desktop processor, and at $329, it's destined to compete head-on with the glowing-value Intel Core Ultra 270K Plus. The 7700X3D's introductory price is $10 below the latest pricing for the …

Samsung SSD 990 Review: An M.2 With Mojo, But Perplexing Pricing

Tony Hoffman — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 21:02:51 +0000

Seeing a brand-new internal SSD from Samsung—the SSD 990—is reassuring at a time when major manufacturers have slowed launches to a trickle amid the ongoing memory shortage. The SSD 990 (starts at $269.99 for 1TB; $529.99 for 2TB as tested) is a DRAM-less, energy-efficient, PCI …

The Best Cheap SSDs for 2026

Tony Hoffman — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 22:17:52 +0000

Still booting from a hard drive? Storage prices may be rising, but these budget-minded solid-state drives will give your poky PC a big speed boost. We've tested dozens; these are the best.

Are you a buyer with basic needs, looking to upgrade a traditional platter hard drive in a laptop or desktop with something faster? These days, it's a safe strategy to check prices on recent SSD models and pick the most affordable drive with the capacity and interface you need from …

Corsair Frame 4000D Wood RS (2026)

Thomas Soderstrom — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 20:00:00 +0000

Corsair's Frame 4000D series, which we first reviewed about a year ago, has evolved into quite the ecosystem: a core PC case, augmented by interchangeable panels, trays, and accessories. You can now mix and match dozens of upgrades through …

Skip Valve’s Steam Machine: I Found 4 DIY Builds That Offer a Lot More for the Money

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:14:39 +0000

Valve released the Steam Machine at long last, but this tiny gaming PC costs more than expected, given its budget-grade parts. You can build a Steam Machine that's faster, even cheaper, or both.

If you're reading this article, chances are you’ve noticed how Valve's new Steam Machine has the gaming world all excited. With memory and graphics card prices through the roof, due to

The Best Graphics Cards for Compact PCs in 2026

Michael Justin Allen Sexton, John Burek — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 20:57:02 +0000

Outfitting a compact PC for 4K and VR, or a tiny budget tower for 1080p gaming? These are our favorite Nvidia GeForce, AMD Radeon, and Intel Arc graphics cards that come in smaller sizes for your next PC build or upgrade.

Before determining which graphics card to buy for a compact PC, you should ideally already own a compact desktop or be close to buying one. This is a key starting place, as the size and design of your PC case will be one big determining factor in what graphics card …

I Configured 4 Small PCs to Beat the Steam Machine at Its Own Game

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Valve has finally dropped its Steam Machine mini desktop, but it's pricier than expected, given its budget-grade parts. Here's how to whip up your own Steam Machine that's faster—and maybe even cheaper.

If you're tuned into the gaming zeitgeist, you’ve seen how fired up everyone is over Valve's new Steam Machine. With prices on components such as memory and graphics cards so high, anything that might make gaming …

The Best M.2 SSDs (Solid State Drives) for 2026

John Burek, Tony Hoffman — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 21:41:40 +0000

Today's fastest internal SSDs come in the super-small "gumstick" M.2 format. Here's how to buy the right M.2 SSD, along with deep-dive reviews of today's top models.

The traditional SSD that you can buy and install in a desktop PC, or in place of a spinning hard drive in an older laptop, uses what's known as the "2.5-inch drive" form factor. (In actuality, the drives are about 2.75 inches wide.) These SSDs have the …

The Best Motherboards for 2026

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Building a desktop PC, or upgrading an aging one? Here's all you need to know about choosing the right motherboard—plus, our top tested picks in boards for the latest AMD and Intel CPU platforms.

We pondered several possible approaches to choosing a motherboard. Do you start with the CPU you want to install and launch your search from there? Do you start with the usage case, then drill down? (Say, gaming versus productivity work versus performance tweaking for fun.) Do you start with the …

The Best CPUs for 2026

Michael Justin Allen Sexton, John Burek — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Whether you're upgrading your desktop PC or building a new one, choosing the right processor is the most crucial and complex choice you will make. Let's simplify it! Here's how to make sense of AMD's and Intel's lines, backed by dozens of our deep-dive reviews.

The First Question in Any CPU Upgrade: When Does Upgrading Make Sense?

When you want to change your desktop CPU, it's important to set a goal for what you want to achieve. Do you want better performance, or are you specifically looking to boost your gaming performance? Is it for a …

Fractal Design Pop 2 Vision

Thomas Soderstrom — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Dual-chamber gaming towers go back farther than the modern models (like Lian Li’s O11 line) that they’re frequently associated with. And today, everyone from Be Quiet to Xigmatek has cast marketing lots into PC cases …

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Is Back From the Dead, But I Wish It Wasn't

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 13:25:10 +0000

At Computex, AMD introduced a new 3D V-Cache desktop processor and resurrected an old one. Here's why you should think carefully before buying either one.

At Computex 2026, AMD unveiled a new Ryzen 7 7700X3D desktop processor and revived its Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Both are midrange gaming CPUs priced at $329 and …

ASRock AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE Steel Legend 12GB OC

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We didn’t expect any new graphics cards to drop at Computex this year, but AMD gave us one anyway, designing the Radeon RX 9070 GRE ($549) to fill the gap between its Radeon RX 9070 …

NZXT H2 Flow

Thomas Soderstrom — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000

NZXT has been showing off stunning new features and glamorous PC case designs for over two decades, yet its latest chassis effort might just send a few of its followers for a loop: The H2 Flow mid-tower is far smaller than its mini-tower predecessor, the …

Buying or Building a PC in the RAM Crisis? Here's How to Avoid Paying the 'AI Tax'

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Sun, 24 May 2026 13:33:29 +0000

Building or buying a PC in 2026 just keeps getting more expensive, with memory and storage prices surging. I've been building PCs for a long time, so here's how I would save my money.

We're nearly a year into today's chronic shortage of PC memory (dubbed by many pundits "RAM-ageddon"), and it's showing no signs of slowing down. If your main-squeeze PC is getting old, you may not be able to avoid …

The Best Budget CPUs for 2026

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Sat, 23 May 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Upgrading or building out your workhorse PC on a tight budget? Here's how to shop for the right AMD or Intel processor for less than $300, along with the top-performing chips in our benchmark tests.

The most significant factors in picking the right desktop CPU revolve around what you plan to use it for and how often. You don’t need a high-octane AMD Ryzen 9 or Intel Core Ultra 9 to browse the web or write text documents. As long as you limit yourself to …

Antec Flux Pro Noctua Edition

Thomas Soderstrom — Sat, 23 May 2026 10:00:00 +0000

I never had the opportunity to review Antec’s original Flux Pro PC case, and its high-airflow design may have passed me by had the company not collaborated with air-cooling kingpin Noctua. My PCMag colleagues certainly couldn’t ignore all that unmistakable Noctua brown and beige when …

AMD Ryzen 5 8500G

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Fri, 22 May 2026 18:32:00 +0000

Almost every CPU on the market today comes equipped with some variety of integrated graphics processor (IGP); those that don't are the exception. The performance you get from these IGPs varies greatly by model, but with the right balance between performance and price, a CPU with …

Intel Core i5-14400

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Fri, 22 May 2026 18:31:00 +0000

Intel launched its current-generation (and current-socket) "Arrow Lake" 200S processors at the end of 2024, but the preceding 14th Gen Core ("Raptor Lake Refresh") models remain capable options for desktop CPU shoppers. Take the Intel Core i5-14400 ($221 MSRP), one of the slower Core i5 chips …

Intel Core Ultra 5 225

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Fri, 22 May 2026 18:30:00 +0000

In every processor line, a special model or two often stands out and garners the most attention. (Recent examples? Take Intel's value-monster Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, or AMD's gamer-fave Ryzen 9 …

Corsair 3200D RS ARGB

Thomas Soderstrom — Sat, 16 May 2026 20:00:00 +0000

Today's PC case prices don’t always seem tethered to current events. Shipping and steel prices were supposed to have driven them up 50% two years ago, but cases introduced in that time have seen largely stable MSRPs. More recently, the US market has been roiled …

The Best PCI Express 5.0 SSDs for 2026

Tony Hoffman — Thu, 07 May 2026 19:37:14 +0000

Want true next-gen SSD performance? Start with a compatible rig—and one of our top tested PCI Express 5.0 M.2 drives. Here's how to choose the right bleeding-edge SSD for your PC.

PCI Express 5.0 (aka PCI Express 5, PCIe 5.0, or Gen 5) internal SSDs have come into their own in the past couple of years, and we have seen at least one PCIe 5.0 drive from all the major SSD manufacturers. The standard effectively doubles an SSD's throughput speed over …

The Best Budget Graphics Cards for 2026

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Thu, 07 May 2026 18:07:40 +0000

Need a cost-conscious upgrade to your desktop's integrated graphics, or a budget boost for your aging video card? We've tested samples of all the major GPUs on the market to pick out the best values.

Everybody's got a different idea of "budget," of course, but we consider any graphics card priced under $350 to be a budget option. We based this target price on MSRP because graphics card pricing is fluctuating wildly due to supply constraints. You may have to pay more than $350 when …

The Best Internal SSDs for 2026

John Burek, Tony Hoffman — Sun, 03 May 2026 20:00:00 +0000

Boost your data capacity and speed up your storage: Here's everything you need to know to buy the right internal SSD, plus our top picks across all the M.2 and 2.5-inch drives PC Labs has tested.

First, some context on the difference between internal and external SSDs. Most of what you need to know is obvious from the name. "Internal" means the drive goes inside a desktop PC's or laptop's chassis, while "external" means it connects to a computer via a cable. But it's good to …

The Best Graphics Cards for 2026

Michael Justin Allen Sexton, John Burek — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 23:39:10 +0000

Hunting for a new GPU for gaming, multi-display, or something else? Here's everything you need to know to shop the latest Nvidia GeForce, AMD Radeon, and Intel Arc video cards with confidence. (We've tested 'em all.)

First off, what does a graphics card do, and do you really need one?

If you're looking at any given prebuilt desktop PC on the market, unless it's a gaming-oriented machine, PC makers will de-emphasize the graphics card in favor of promoting CPU, RAM, or storage options. Indeed, sometimes that's for …

The Best CPUs for Gaming in 2026

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 01:27:17 +0000

Buying the right processor for PC gaming might seem complicated—especially with AMD's multiple Ryzen families and Intel's many Cores and "Lakes." Here's everything you need to know, plus our top picks based on PC Labs' deep-dive CPU reviews.

The Basics of CPUs for Gaming

Before continuing, if you are relatively new to PC building and aren't familiar with the specifics of what makes up a processor, we'd recommend you read our general-purpose best CPUs article first. We will proceed from here under the assumption …

Fractal Design North Momentum Edition

Thomas Soderstrom — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Fractal Design returns with a new version of its now-classic North PC case. (The original birthed a wave of cases with wooden highlights.) The new chassis looks familiar at first glance but makes a few key changes. The $179.99 North Momentum Edition swaps the original …

Cooler Master Cosmos Alpha

Thomas Soderstrom — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 18:00:00 +0000

One of the early examples of a “prosumer” product (that is, performing professional applications on a personal PC), Cooler Master’s original Cosmos PC case combined the advanced aesthetics of high-end workstations with the kind of deep feature set that high-end PC builders expect. The Cosmos …

Intel Targets AI Workstations With Memory-Stuffed Arc Pro B70 and B65 GPUs

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Intel's new Arc Pro cards flex 32GB of memory, aiming squarely at demanding AI pipelines and model-heavy workloads.

The tech industry is undergoing rapid change as everyone focuses on AI. Intel is among the companies revving up new silicon and hardware to drive AI workloads, and it is now pushing its AI hardware to the next level with new Arc Pro B70 and B65

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